How to Create the Perfect Wife (23 page)

Poor André would never recover; in desolation, he enlisted in the army. Given charge of British secret services during the American war of independence, he would in 1780 be hanged as a spy, on George Washington’s orders. Equally devastated by the end of this perfect romance, Seward would publish a dramatic elegy,
Monody on Major André,
in 1781, which celebrated his doomed love and heroic death and incorporated the love letters exchanged between André and herself on behalf of Honora in 1769. The poem would make André a national hero and Seward a household name.

Shedding no tears over her broken engagement, Honora was freed to concentrate on a more compelling romance. During his Christmas break with Day, Edgeworth had spent every possible moment in Honora’s company and found that “the more I saw, the more I admired her.” His unhappy domestic circumstances only made his anguish worse. “I had long suffered from the want of that cheerfulness in a wife, without which marriage could not be agreeable to a man of such a temper as mine,” he wrote. “I had borne this evil, I believe, with patience; but my not being happy at home exposed me to the danger of being too happy elsewhere.”

Determined, nonetheless, to stay faithful to his wife, Edgeworth forced himself to stifle his desires. Although he was a man of impulse who lived in the moment, he would always stick solidly to his honorable principles;
he was a rare blend in Georgian times. And so once he had persuaded Day to relinquish Sabrina to her boarding school and noticed his friend’s halfhearted interest in Honora, Edgeworth backed discreetly out of the scene. Leaving behind a pining Honora, Edgeworth returned reluctantly to his melancholy wife and young family at Hare Hatch in early 1771.

Now that the field was clear, with both Sabrina and Edgeworth safely out of the way, Seward seized the moment. Although she would later note that “marriage is often the grave of love,” she could never resist an opportunity for matchmaking. Inviting Day more and more often to the palace, Seward took every opportunity to bring together her favorite philosopher and her adored pupil. In a letter to a friend, Seward divulged her scheme. Day, she proclaimed, was “the only man I ever saw, except one, who I think
quite
worthy my Honora.”

Describing him as her version of the ideal male, she enthused: “Mr Day’s character rises ev’ry hour—he puts on Virtue & it clothes him, his goodness is more than a robe or a diadem. I must take a quire of paper was I to set about enumerating particular instances of his active benevolence. With a fortune of which a Dunce wd be proud—talents which wd make a beggar look down upon the world & dispise it—with ev’ry virtue under Heaven—he knows not what pride is, & values nothing less than Titles or Dress or Figure.” Granted Day had his “singularities” for which “the Envious, ridicule & dislike him.” Yet Seward was sure that these eccentricities made him all the more suited to Honora since she too, in Seward’s view, detested ambition, vanity and luxury and “would be happier in stooping to the lowest duty of humanity than to glitter in a ball room with all the splendor & elegance of dress & equipage.”

But did the pair like each other? Seward was convinced that Day was enamored of Honora even if he showed scant evidence of this interest. “He admires, he esteems, he praises her. I think he feels passion for her & if he does I think it will be mutual,” she wrote, then allowing her imagination to run on she added, “& if it shd [be] they will marry—to be sure it is an event which promises me much happiness.” The truth was that Seward believed that a match between Honora and Day would be perfect chiefly because it would mean that she would not altogether lose her beloved girl. Since many of Day’s friends lived in Lichfield and there-abouts,
the couple would more than likely live nearby. She admitted as much to her friend Po: “Remember dear Po that all I have said upon this subject arises only from my own wishes & dont imagine that they are
Lovers
for they are yet only friends.”

Slowly, haltingly, as the spring flowers opened along the banks of Stowe Pool, the friendship between Day and Honora blossomed belatedly into romance—with much careful nurturing on the part of their chaperone Anna. Tramping the path to the palace with increasing regularity, Day escorted Honora to plays and concerts in his usual aloof manner and monopolized her with didactic monologues explaining his worldview at assemblies and soirées. In protracted conversations on chaperoned walks, he outlined his plans to live apart from society in rural isolation with neither comforts nor diversions and described the exact requirements of the woman with whom he wished to share this domestic idyll.

Since Honora was already acquainted with Sabrina and aware of Day’s experimental efforts, she could have been in no doubt as to the spartan existence he had in mind or the stoical qualities he expected in a wife. It went without saying that the candidate for this privileged position would also need to undergo stringent training of the type he had already imposed on Sabrina. How could she resist? Seward held her breath in eager anticipation as she egged each of them on to acknowledge the other’s virtues in her favorite position at the apex of the love triangle.

Finally, Day wrote to Edgeworth to confess his new love interest and ask his friend whether he could subdue his own feelings for Honora sufficiently to brook the prospect of her marrying Day. It was “one of the most eloquent letters” Edgeworth had ever received. It would need to be. Insisting that he did not want to harm their friendship, Day helpfully pointed out the folly of Edgeworth pursuing a “hopeless passion” and asked: “Tell me, have you sufficient strength of mind, totally to subdue love, that cannot be indulged compatibly with peace, or honour, or virtue.” Edgeworth could hardly disagree with his friend’s assessment. And so to test his forbearance in seeing his darling Honora on the arm of his best friend, he gamely undertook to move his family to Lichfield.

In late spring of 1771, therefore, Edgeworth brought his wife, Anna Maria, and three children to live in Stowe House with Day. Quite how
Edgeworth explained this sudden uprooting to Anna Maria can only be guessed at. While Dick, now seven, ran amok in the grounds of the house, closely followed by his devoted sister Maria, who was three, poor Mrs. Edgeworth tended baby Emmeline. Determined to test his resilience to “the dangerous object” to the limits, Edgeworth took over the lease on the house while Day stayed on as a guest—and tested the resilience of Mrs. Edgeworth, who disliked Day as much as ever.

Introducing the sorrowful Anna Maria into the Lichfield social circle for the first time, Edgeworth forced himself to smile benignly as Day courted Honora. Everywhere they went, Edgeworth saw Day and Honora together, and when the pair were apart, Day bent his ear by describing his feelings in exacting detail. “I saw him continually in company with Honora Sneyd,” wrote Edgeworth, adding wearily: “I was the depositary of every thought, that passed in the mind of Mr. Day.” With Edgeworth’s patience stretched to breaking point, Day blathering about the daily ups and downs of his courtship and Mrs. Edgeworth growing increasingly exasperated by the whole scenario—while Dick tore around the house barefoot—the tensions must have been palpable in the tranquil-looking villa.

Finally steeling himself for the event that he now viewed as inevitable, the wretched Edgeworth assured Day that he not only approved of his marriage to Honora but firmly believed he would feel pleasure in the couple’s happiness. Nothing now stood between Day and marital bliss but “a declaration on his part, and compliance on the part of the lady,” observed Edgeworth ruefully. Yet with the engagement expected daily, Day still dithered.

A few days later, while strolling under the flowering limes in The Close one evening in early summer with a party of friends, Edgeworth managed to sneak a few private words with Honora. One of the group had airily referred to the long-expected engagement between Honora and Day as a foregone conclusion, but Honora then made a comment that cast doubt upon the plan. Assuming that she must be referring to some perceived uncertainty in Day’s mind, Edgeworth warmly assured her that his friend was indeed eager to marry. Honora simply shook her head.

The very next morning Edgeworth left his family in Stowe House and trod the well-worn path to the Bishop’s Palace bearing a parcel of papers
that contained a proposal of marriage. Sadly, for poor Edgeworth, the proposal was not from himself but from Day. Having finally taken the plunge to ask Honora to marry him, Day had drawn up a long and detailed summary of his precise expectations of marriage, his particular requirements in a wife and his proposed mode of living according to the outline he had already discussed at length with Honora. Written out laboriously over several sheets of paper, the parcel contained “the sum of many conversations that have passed between us,” Day informed Edgeworth. “I am satisfied, that, if the plan of life I have here laid down meets her approbation, we shall be perfectly happy,” he added. Day told a skeptical Edgeworth that he felt sure that “if once she resolves to live a calm, secluded life she will never wish to return to more gay or splendid scenes.” And then, like a true romantic, he had asked the tormented Edgeworth to deliver his bizarre proposal to the palace. Solemnly accepting the parcel Honora promised to respond by the following morning, and Edgeworth trudged glumly back to his wife and family for a miserable twenty-four-hour wait. The following day Edgeworth retraced his steps and accepted Honora’s written reply, which he dutifully presented to Day.

To Day’s horror—and Edgeworth’s heartfelt relief—Honora rejected the marriage proposal outright. In an impeccably argued response, which Edgeworth later reported, Honora declared that she “would not admit the unqualified control of a husband over all her actions; she did not feel, that seclusion from society was indispensably necessary to preserve female virtue, or to secure domestic happiness,” and furthermore, she refused to believe that marital happiness could ever exist without “terms of reasonable equality.” Honora was certainly equal to Day’s imperious demands. In summary, Honora informed Day that as he had “decidedly declared his determination to live in perfect seclusion from what is usually called the world, it was fit she should decidedly declare, that she would not change her present mode of life, with which she had no reason to be dissatisfied, for any dark and untried scheme.”

Seward had taught her pupil well—perhaps just a little too well for her own liking. Explaining her decision to Anna, Honora said that she admired Day’s talents and virtues, but no matter how hard she had tried to “school her heart into softer sentiments in his favour,” she had failed. There
was just something about Day’s vision of married bliss in a remote hovel in complete subservience to his whim that apparently did not appeal. Now more in awe of the feisty Honora than ever, Edgeworth considered her response “an excellent answer,” which met Day’s arguments in favor of the rights of men with “a clear dispassionate view of the rights of women.”

Day, however, was so shocked by the rejection that he fell immediately into a fever and took to his bed for several days. Only the tender care of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who bustled round to Stowe House to siphon several ounces of blood from Day’s veins and apply some stern words of advice, managed to revive the jilted lover’s spirits.

A few weeks later Major Sneyd marched into Lichfield, commandeered a large townhouse in St. John’s Street, rounded up his four unmarried daughters and promptly installed them in his new quarters. As Honora was recalled from the palace and eighteen-year-old Elizabeth was brought back from Shrewsbury, so their two sisters, Mary, twenty, and Charlotte, seventeen, were returned from their foster families elsewhere. The major had evidently decided that he needed to keep his eligible young daughters under more careful vigilance. Having retired from active service, Major Sneyd settled down in genteel comfort and threw himself into Lichfield social circles. A stern father and a wily businessman, Mr. Sneyd began to accumulate a tidy sum by investing his army savings in shares in the canals being cut throughout the region. Over the next two years he would accrue nearly £10,000 (£17.8 million or $2.9 million today), and his earnings thereafter would continue to soar. With four daughters each requiring handsome dowries to make successful marriages he knew that he would need the funds.

Naturally Anna Seward was distraught at Honora’s departure for her father’s home. She had lived in intimate companionship with Honora for fourteen years, and she felt as if she was losing a second sister. “The domestic separation proved very grievous,” she told a friend although she consoled herself with the fact that Honora was “in the same town; we were often together, and her heart was unchanged.” In a poem, “Time Past,” written eighteen months later, Seward would look back sadly on the cozy domestic evenings when she and “My loved Honora” had formerly gathered before a cheerful winter fire. Now the center of her domestic
world—the symbolic hearth of her home—was gone, and “many a dark, long eve I sigh alone.” For Honora, however, reunited with her three sisters after more than a decade under the stifling attentions of Anna Seward, the change was probably a relief. Indeed, it is not impossible that she had written another secret letter asking to be summoned back into the family fold.

As Seward lamented Honora’s loss and Day nursed his wounded pride, Edgeworth threw himself into organizing a suitable diversion: a summer archery contest with a silver arrow as a prize. The day proved idyllic. With butts set up on a bowling green, all Lichfield society turned out to enjoy the event. While the gentlemen limbered up to compete in the archery tournament, the ladies of the town gathered along the sidelines to cheer on their chosen beaux. As well as archery, the indefatigable Edgeworth had organized music, dancing, fencing and athletics so that there was plenty to occupy both adults and children.

Anna Seward arrived arm in arm with Honora. Thomas Day was sufficiently recovered from his fever to shamble over from Stowe House, although he had no intention of joining in the music or dancing. John Saville had almost certainly helped to arrange the music and may well have sung a solo or two. And it is easy to imagine a portly Erasmus Darwin sporting with his three boys and perhaps their young nanny, Mrs. Edgeworth prompting her children to join in the fun as she managed a weak smile and a host of clerics in black wool stockings, black breeches and flowing black gowns leaping and dancing like a flock of rooks.